The aim of our book-publishing enterprise is to provide a broader context for the articles that appear in our journal and to provide a forum for our published authors in the context of Jewish intellectual life. Our first volume (now out of print) was a collection of addresses by Sándor Scheiber, who conveyed to the post-Shoa generations the ethos of Hungarian Jewish scholarship and of Jewish culture. His work will also serve as our stepping stone into the new century when it will appear shortly as an e-book.
Our main aim is to publish new Jewish writing that reacts to the changes of the times and the results of research on Hungarian Jewish history so that we may once again rediscover the intellectual achievements of the last one hundred years. Once Hungary was one of the most significant centers of Judaism, boasting such internationally renowned intellectuals as Immánuel Löw, Ármin Vámbéry, Ignác Goldziher, Vilmos Bacher, Lajos Blau, Bernát Heller, Sándor Scheiber, István Hahn, and many more. It is part of our mission to retrieve this treasure for the bloodstream of Hungarian and world culture. The Holocaust destroyed many a brilliant career, such as that of Károly Pap, prosewriter, and of the painter Imre Ámos; it is to figures like them that we look back for our intellectual identity. Similarly, we regard Aladár Komlós as exemplary literary and intellectual historian, and we have already publishes some of his foundational work. We have also now begun the publication of the lifeworks of Ákos Molnár and András Komor, and, most recently and most significantly, that of Dezső Szomory. We can also be proud of the fact that we publish the major of part of Ágnes Heller’s oeuvre in Hungarian, and that much of this work the world-renowned philosopher has undertaken at the request and with the collaboration of the editor. We follow with interest and publish the most recent and important works of Jewish literature. Our Hagar series, under the editorialship of Michael K. Silber and published in collaboration with the Department of Habsburg Judaism of the Hebrew University, brings out works on the sources of Jewish history as well as important studies.
